Moyesy says: "I think it is our best performance of this season but I think it has been coming. We have been playing really well in recent weeks without maybe scoring enough or keeping a clean sheet to win the games.

"Our performances have been improving every week and it is now getting a bit more like where I want us to be. "I said two or three weeks ago I thought he was playing as well as anybody in that position and I think his performance today confirms that.

"We have started one or two players back but, more importantly, we have started to get a little bit of confidence. I think the injuries have been the biggest part and we still don't have enough players - you only have to look at the bench. You look at their bench and it is full of senior international players, so we have still got to get half a dozen or so players back from injury."

* Mancini trapping the ball when it fell out of the sky better than any of his team on show.

* Carlos Tevez turning around to see who had just twatted him off the ball. Only to see Johnny Heitinga glearing at him.

* Moyesy heading the ball back as it went out for a throw in.

* Peanuts running towards the away fans after scoring to hug a steward.

* At the end of the game Phil Neville swapped shirts with Carlos Tevez and Steven Pienaar with Benjani.

* Lescott..Lescott..What's The Score?..

* The whole ground "der der dering" to the tune of Z-Cars near the end of the match. A memorable moment.

IF ANY EVERTON FAN WANTS TO WRITE A REPORT OF ANY OF THIS SEASON'S GAMES, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO DO SO. JUST E-MAIL IT TO enquiries@bluekipper.com AND WE WILL PUT IT HERE.

Sitteh, geggin’ an’ skankin’........or something
By
Mickey Blue Eyes.

Own up now.........how many of you saw that 2-0 over Sitteh coming let alone the accomplished performance? I know I didn’t, I would have been happy with a scrappy point beforehand. But as the match went on it became patently clear that not only were we streets ahead of Sitteh, last week’s draw at Arsenal wasn’t a fluke either. All round it left you with a warm glow inside, and at just the right time of year. This was given added pique because of City’s thoroughly disgusting corruption over the Lescott transfer saga. Mainly I’m glad Joleon Lescott didn’t play, but you couldn’t help feeling it would have been symmetric for him to be on the end of this hiding too.

An added bonus has left me free to take the mickey out of manc friends who use strange words like “geggin’” and “skankin’”. No scouser worth his adenoidal alveolar fricatives has the slightest idea what the fuck either of these weird words mean, anymore than he can understand manc inability to pronounce ultimate letter Ts......For instance, if you ask a manc to say “Get it out” you invariably hear something like “Geh ih owh.” In the first half you could hear a lot of that from the Moss Side Arabs because they could hardly geh owh of their own half. That’s how much we battered them. I’ll write that again because it gave me such satisfaction: That’s how much we battered them. Only a churl would deny any of us the right to feel good now after our putrid first half of the season. But as we all know, footy is riddled with churls at all levels.

Overall, it was a superlative show requiring different approaches in each half. In the first, Sitteh were overrun (bugger it, I’ll say it again: In the first, Sitteh were mostly overrun), and in the second their inevitable resurgence was comfortably contained and then they were overwhelmed again. It was just the kind of performance all Evertonians have been yearning for, and which they richly deserve. When Marouane Fellaini did a second-half graceful pirouette with the ball around unfortunate-looking and thoroughly-disliked Craig Bellamy the crowd almost had a communal orgasm. Nor was it mere show-boating – could you imagine Calvinist Moyesy tolerating such an excess? – because he came out of it in a tight space and in the clear in the centre of the pitch and started another move. It had everybody out of their seat, cheering. You could feel all the pent up tension of a lousy season exhale in one great breath. Maybe it was The Moment, league-wise. We’ll see.

The difference between the two sides was evident to veteran fans. We had a lot of determination allied to first rate team pride and good pass-and-movement; they had an equal amount of expensive ball control and short passing. But for us what was most obvious was the indefinable team chemistry essential to any team, something missing for most of this season thus far. City don’t have that yet and won’t achieve much until they do. When you have it, you can dictate the tempo of the game; when it’s absent, you are always chasing shadows. It allows substitutes to come on and indulge themselves and leave a mark much as young Coleman did late in the game, once again at the expense of the unfortunate Bellamy. By comparison City substituted one of their substitutes, which said it all really. Mancini has a lot of problems to sort out, apart from the scarf and the barnet.

The pity was both first half goals didn’t come from open play, though Steven Pienaar’s free-kick opener – left side, just outside the box, swerved up, over and down and inside the post at ground level – was a footy craftsman masterpiece. For the other, Micah Richards for some reason lost his common sense and pulled Louis Saha’s shirt for all of ten comical metres before Louis stuck the following penalty right down the middle while excellent Shay Given committed to his left. This caused one of those typical footy hypocrisies when there were protests the original shirt pull was outside the box (which it was, but missed by the ref and the linesman) and so “it should have been a free kick instead.” Oh aye yeh, like that made the pulls inside the box okay if they had got away with it? Meantime, smooth movement all over the park had tugged City to pieces almost every time we moved into their half. Bily in particular hit two pile drivers that narrowly missed the goal and had four rows of speckies diving for cover.

Not that City were inactive. Petrov had a couple of early shots for them and when they did string something together it looked quite pretty, if ineffective. Their problem seems to be a lack of genuine creativity in midfield. There’s a lot of activity for them there but it all looks uncoordinated and a bit slapdash when it gets to the final quarter of the pitch. I think a lot of this stems from the absence of Ireland, though you would think their bench had more than enough to compensate.

No question, man of the match was Marouane Fellaini. He mopped up almost everything high and low at centre mid with Steven Pienaar and then laid it off short while having an interesting battle for space with Barry and the fearsome De Jong, which our two won hands down. As forecast by Moyesy, the big, lanky hirsute one seems to be finally shrugging off his close season illness and is beginning to realise his full potential. You would have to be blind to miss his display in this match. He was magnificent. The only time I got concerned about midfield was when Shaun Wright-Phillips came on as substitute for disinterested-and-expensive substitute Robinho after an hour. Traditionally, SWP has torn the back out of us. Well, this time Phil Neville got an early one in and the rest of the time SWP was shown the flag and kept there harmlessly.

The midfield of Donovan-Fellaini-Pienaar-Bilyaletdinov had a balance we have missed since Mikky got injured. Landon Donovan’s non-stop effort on the right made as big a difference as Steven Pienaar’s move inside. Donovan has the clean cut looks of a middle class Yank on his way to a high school prom, but he also has the best of Can-Do Americana in his favour in much the same way as Brian MacBride and Joe Max Moore. You can’t help but like him in spite of his exaggerated American orthodontistry. This stretched play the full width of the pitch.........the formation, not the orthodontistry.

The back four of Neville-Heitinga-Distin-Baines was as solid as you could hope for. It was especially pleasing to see whole-hearted Phil Neville back from injury to add much-needed composure. Sylvan Distin has managed to recover his form and links well with Heitinga in a hard-man duo with tons of experience. All of this provides a solid base for Leighton Baines, who gains in confidence and form by each match.

The striking duo of Louis Saha and Tim Cahill is probably the best we have at the club. You could tell Tim Cahill was up for it because he committed two daft fouls in the first couple of minutes and went on snapping and snarling throughout. But within ten minutes he got done twice in return to set the opening balance right. In footy jargon this is called “settling down.” The first tackles always count. In this match their close play and interchanging caused City all kinds of trouble on the edge of their penalty area. The sum total of all this was we had virtual total control right down the centre of the pitch and enough flexibility on the flanks to keep them guessing. How many times have we been able to say that over the years?

So for the moment we can even indulge in wistful fanciful dreams of what we would be like with all our players back, and in full fitness and form. It’s a nice feeling. Enjoy it while it lasts.

What Do You Think The Score Will Be? e-mail enquiries@bluekipper.com

* 2-0 Donovan, Saha. Lisa Dunne

* 2-1 to us. Fellaini and Billy for us and Bellamy for sitteh. Martin Roberts

* 3-2 Everton Donovan Cahill and Vaughan! Mike Allen

* 2-1 to the Toffee's. Screech and Donovan. Steven Clay

* 3-1 to us. We will give city a lesson in togetherness!!!!!! COYB!!!! Gary Coppell

* Think we'll spring afew surprises like the Arsenal game. It's going to be an epic. Mark Reid

* We will do the city 3-1. COYB. Mark Radford

* 1-0 Timmy Cahill!! Colin Ryan

* 3-2 to Everton. Saha hatrick. Phil Rain

* 3 - 1 to the mighty blues. Donovan to score on his Goodison debut. Dan Brown

* 2-1 toffees. Paul Moran

* A simple 1-0 with Donovan to bag it close to 90 mins. COYB. John George Timson

* 2-1 Cahill and Screech. Adam Lester

* 2-1. Osman and Donovan. Rich Jackson

* 2 1 cahill and donavon. Tony Ibbotson Efc Snowdon

* Any win will do. Own goal Mancini. Scrummpy Jack

* Always get a result from City, 2-0 to the mighty blues. Alex Hunter

* 2 - 0 Everton but a tight game. Steve Holmes

* 1 - 0 COYB. John Power

So then the game most of us have been waiting for all season, and would you believe it there is a chance that Roger won't be playing in it. I know we would have all wanted to stand and applaud him onto the pitch he graced so admirably for a few seasons, but never mind. He obviously left for football reasons, having played in an FA Cup Final, in Europe for two out of the three seasons that he was here, to a club who have won fuck all since 1976, yep 1976. The trebled salary from the Arabs really had nothing to do with his decision, as he struggled to live on roughly £30k a week, shit that reminds me, my car tax is due, anyone got £200 dabs to lend me. Of course footballers live in the real world, ye honest. Anyhow that's my four penneth, onto the team news.

Talking of players leaving, Lucas Neill is still eligible to play in this one, as he does leave to Turkey till Monday. Apparently there are only two flights a week from Manchester Airport, but in fairness to Neill he did not want to go, the Blues decided to cash in on their free signing. Expect him to start with Johnny at the back, as Sylvian is back in the squad but why risk him when Lucas is a bit more disposable at present. Landon Donovan should carry on in place of Billy and in turn make his Goodison bow. I expect not much too change from last weeks starting line up against The Arse. Hibbo, Mikky, The Jag and Big Vic are all still out, as is Joey and The Yak who have International commitments.

Funny encounter this one, as the last three meeting between ourselves and Sitteeh have been wins for the away side. Last season's fixture at Goodison came on the high of the week before winning an FA Cup Semi Final, but in the match we lost without doubt our player of the season in The Jag. Sitteh as we know won 2-1, there first win at Goodison since 1992, lets hope its another seventeen years till they do it again. COYB FTRS.

Sitteh hold this season's Prem record of losing the least number of matches, two in all (manure and Spurs). They sit fourth and after having spent billions upon billions in the Summer they sacked Lego head a few weeks back and installed Italian pedigree in Roberto Mancini.

Sitteh are down to the bare bones for this one, and only have twenty eight Internationals to call upon. Arsenal wearing T shirt man Adebayor is off on compassionate grounds, Robhino is doubtful, Lescott, Ireland, Santa Cruz and Toure are all out.

Never mind only Tevez, Viera, and a host of the Millionaires Club are still available for selection as new boy Roberto Mancini pits his wits against Moyesy for the first time.

Sitteh from: Corrigan, Power, Donachie, Doyle, Watson, Tueart, Oakes, Barnes, Booth, Gow, Hutchinson, Reeves, Goater, McDonald, Bond, Kinsey, Simpson, May, Kidd, Owen